by D A Lavizzo

Created on: May 15, 2009

Star Trek is back. Oh boy, is it back.

Having said that, let me give you a little back story. I've been a fan of Star Trek, roughly, since a week or two before I was born. I grew up watching the classic episodes with my dad on Nick at Nite, and we would have our family time in front of the TV each week during "The Next Generation", then discuss each episode and the philisophical questions they raised. I can tell you where the Enterprise was built, I can name most of the bridge crew for every series, I can even quite possibly put each of the original series episodes in chronological order.

I say all of this not to expose how much of a closet nerd I am, but to qualify that yes, I am a Trekkie. I'm a Trekkie that absolutely loved this movie. J.J. Abrams has managed to inject something into Star Trek that has been absent in the more recent shows - a sense of fun and adventure. Everything is fast and frantic, action packed and cranked up, all the movie cliches. With this film, however, they aren't simply cliches. If you're a Star Trek fan, this movie will remind you why you love the series. If you aren't, there is no better way to explain why this series is so enduring than to simply sit through this movie.

Once the initial back stories are gotten out of the way, this movie kicks it into - ahem - warp drive, and never slows down for a minute. Even if you weren't a fan before, you'll find yourself clapping, cheering, and - more importantly - laughing your way through this movie. It is a genuinely entertaining experience. One can tell that this movie was crafted as a work of love, and not simply a cash generating franchise machine. Even Eric Bana manages to make you forget about his turn in "The Hulk" with some very powerful moments as Captain Nero.

The interesting thing about Star Trek is that it manages to sneak tons of references to older films and series in, while managing not to alienate new viewers. The humour is a perfect balance between Star Trek in-jokes and situational humour that's almost universal - I don't want to give too much away, but one scene with a young cadet Kirk in a very compromising position with an Orion girl had everyone in the theatre laughing.

Therein lies the magic of this film. Granted, Kirk is a "starfleet" cadet and the girl was from another planet, but the writers manage to take everyday experiences and apply them to the far-out fiction that is Star Trek much in the same way Gene Roddenberry did with the original series. These characters aren't far-flung, space jockeys that speak in techno-jargon and never second guess themselves. They are real and easy to relate to. As Spock might say, "Quite human."

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